When I think of our movement’s philosophy of people helping people, Coopera and their good work of serving the underserved immediately comes to mind. Over the past 10 years, Coopera has partnered with credit unions and organizations across the country to truly make a difference in the financial lives of Hispanic consumers. And make a difference they have! More than 1 million U.S. Hispanic consumers at more than 200 credit unions have been served through Coopera and their partners. That’s more than 1 million people that now have access to fair and dignified financial services. When I reflect on our original conversations with Coopera’s founder, the late Warren Morrow, we all knew that Warren’s vision to serve the Hispanic community needed to become a reality. The Iowa Credit Union League wanted to help make that happen. Today, under the leadership of CEO Miriam De Dios, Coopera and their partners are poised to continue carrying forward the mission and improving the financial lives of many more Hispanic consumers.

A little more than a decade ago, Coopera’s founder, Warren Morrow, a Mexican immigrant, conceived a powerful vision that serving the Hispanic community was not philanthropy but good business. Warren was a true visionary. In its 10-year history, Coopera has not only expanded the reach of credit union industry, but elevated the financial well being and dignity of the Hispanic population in the communities it serves. CUNA’s partnership with Coopera truly serves the principles of the credit union movement as the founders envisioned it. We look forward to many more years of success together.

We started working with Coopera a decade ago, soon after the company was founded under the Iowa Credit Union League. At that time, we were experiencing negative membership growth and knew we needed to do something different. Our branch is located in the heart of where the Des Moines Hispanic population lives and works and we knew the Hispanic community was growing while our membership was continuing to age. We knew we needed to expand our business opportunities within the Hispanic community with the help of Coopera.

We have an excellent working relationship with the Coopera team whom has helped us set and reach our goals and kept us accountable. We have seen the Coopera team evolve and had the opportunity to work with Coopera’s founder and late CEO, Warren Morrow and now Coopera’s CEO Miriam De Dios and her team. We would not have the successes we have today without their help. As a result, we have experienced positive net member growth for a number of years now and our Hispanic membership continues to be our fastest growing member segment.

We are achieving positive, healthy growth, steadily increasing our membership and growing assets, such as loans and checking accounts.We will continue to look to Coopera in the future to help us grow at a steady pace and help us create new strategies.

Congratulations, Coopera, on your 10th anniversary! The Federation is proud to partner with Miriam De Dios and the Coopera team on the financial empowerment of Hispanic consumers through credit unions. Les mando nuestras felicitaciones y mejores deseos para el futuro.

Our partnership with Coopera has helped Gesa grow and expand the services we’re able to offer the Hispanic community and our members in a strategic and thought out way. Thanks to the expert guidance of the staff at Coopera, our credit union has formalized Hispanic growth strategies and metrics for measuring our success.

We first engaged with Coopera in 2014 to better understand the Hispanic market from cultural differences to the community’s views on death and dying. At the time, we recognized that while we had a significant presence in high Hispanic-populated states, we might not be meeting our own internal expectations for providing the very best support and service for our Hispanic policy owners and agent partners. We also felt there was an opportunity to position ourselves better for future growth with this young, fast-growing and underserved market. We knew that to be the provider of choice for this community, we needed to address the specific cultural, language and product needs of the market, amongst other areas.

We have since worked with Coopera to better inform ourselves, to understand what it takes to serve the community well and to develop a strategic plan to more proactively include this underserved community. Coopera has been a strong strategic partner for us, and we look forward to continuing working with them into the future.

With a nationwide reach, our policy owner, agent and funeral home owner base is made up of a diverse population, including the fast-growing Hispanic population. A few years ago, we realized that we were not doing enough to meet the needs of this growing and underserved community, especially with what we offer, which is advance funeral planning and funding. We decided to start by learning more about the market and the opportunity at hand. Looking for expert help in working with diverse markets, we discovered Coopera. They have demonstrated much success in helping businesses structure their organizations to serve Hispanics and be better prepared to reach out to other underserved consumer groups. We’ve learned a great deal from Coopera. Perhaps the most important thing they helped us understand is that this is not a short-term initiative. We are only in the beginning stages of this journey. We are looking forward to working with Coopera into the future as we further develop our strategy and begin executing upon it.

Several years ago, Hope Credit Union made the decision to expand our efforts to meet the financial service needs of the Mid South’s growing Hispanic community. Coopera’s guidance and insight have been vitally important in helping to ensure that our hiring, marketing, product development and other aspects of our work are culturally appropriate and respectful. We look forward to a long partnership with Coopera as we strive to become the preferred financial service provider for our Hispanic neighbors throughout Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.

In 2014, Idaho Central Credit Union partnered with Coopera to assist with our goal of becoming a recognized provider of financial services to the Hispanic community in Idaho. Since then, Coopera has become a valued strategic partner, providing insight and ideas that have helped us on this journey. Utilizing Coopera’s analytics, we’ve gained a better understanding of our current Hispanic members and potential members. Focus groups conducted by Coopera were instrumental in helping us learn more about our local Hispanic community’s needs and providing guidance for product development. Miriam De Dios, Coopera CEO, has been an invaluable resource and consultant. The proof is in the numbers: in 2016 ICCU increased its Hispanic membership by 39.4%.

As an industry leader, Coopera’s partnership has been key in advancing our Hispanic initiatives. Like all Credit Unions, we want to provide value and remain relevant to the markets we serve. Since 2010, Coopera has helped us develop a culture and various programs to create more value for the fastest growing demographic group within our Field of Membership. They helped us evolve from a state of awareness towards a trusted provider of services to the Hispanic market. To date, they have helped us with identifying social values, providing cultural education and key market information for our board of directors, management and staff. All of these tools have helped us develop a broad strategy.